Girl Without Hands Wins Handwriting Competition

Anaya Ellick, a first grader from Virginia, most likely has better handwriting than you. The seven-year-old recently won a national penmanship competition. Oh, and she has no hands.

Ellick was awarded the Nicholas Maxim Special Award for Excellence in Manuscript Penmanship for students from first grade through eighth and she doesn’t even use prostheses.

Tracy Cox, the principal of Greenbrier Christian Academy in Chesapeake, told ABC News, “There is truly very little that this girl cannot do.”

So how does she write? With her forearms.

Ellick grips the pencil between her forearms and writes out each letter slowly and methodically, even standing so she can use certain angles to properly write each letter.

According to an ABC affiliate, that’s not all she can do. Her teacher said she was blown away by how Ellick can cut and glue things, and even tie her shoes.

Ellick entered the contest under a category that encourages kids with physical or developmental disabilities to enter.

“We looked at her writing and were just stunned to see how well her handwriting was, considering she writes without hands,” Kathleen Wright, competition director, said. In fact, the award was actually named after the winner from 2011, Nicholas Maxim, who also has no hands.

It’s clear that winning this competition is just one stop on Ellick’s road to success.